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“It Will Take Two or Three Years Before all Exchanges Are Shut Down in China”

Note: Xiao Lei, writer of this article, is a well-known financial commentator and a digital currency researcher.

China Securities Journal and Caixin reported last weekend that regulatory agencies are likely to ban all digital currency exchanges, including leading bitcoin exchanges such as BTCChina, Huobi and OkCoin.

Both China Securities Journal and Caixin are credible news sources. China Securities Journal is a subsidiary of Xinhua News Agency, and one of its missions is to propagandize relevant policies and guidelines concerning economy, finance and securities.

The “mysterious” man mentioned in the news is probably a person who attended the panel discussion on how to impose regulation on the bitcoin economy held in Beijing last week. And the regulatory authority mentioned in the news is a special leading group set up ad hoc last year to manage and control Internet financial risks.

Attached to the State Council, the leading group implements the State Council’s policies to encourage valuable innovations in internet finance and establish long-term mechanism monitoring and crack down any illegal financial activities.

The Group believes that the hot bitcoin market is one of the root causes of the craze of cryptocurrencies and ICOs market. In other words, bitcoin market shall be regulated first before regulations be imposed on the ICOs market.

Secondly, the Group points that since one can buy any portion of a bitcoin, which is similar to dividing security interest. As such, bitcoin transactions are by their very nature illegal securities activities.

Thirdly, the Group clarifies that bitcoin is not the blockchain technology, neither are bitcoin exchanges.

The three statements explain why the group think it is necessary to ban bitcoin exchanges. They want the market get a glimpse of upcoming regulations first and see how the market will react.

Furthermore, the Group notes that digital exchanges are not useful for technical development. Instead, they leave room for crimes to raise fund illegally. And bitcoin exchanges have done nothing to help grow real economy.

Some local governments are supportive of regulatory sandboxes that industrial players have been asking for. But the Group says that “there should be no green-lights”. As to the investment threshold, the Group believes that market risks would be decreased if threshold to be increased, but it will not avoid financial risks and social risks. In addition, if they recognize the legitimacy of digital currencies, they have to endorse them.

In a word, the Group denies all of the prerequisites for exchanges to operate.

Here I’m going to talk a little bit about how to carry out regulations.

The PBoC has the right to determine the nature of many currency and finance services; but it only notices risks and offers suggestions when many departments are involved. The announcement on Sept 4th is actually providing legal basis for the Group.

Though the Group is unanimous that bitcoin exchanges must be regulated, it depends on local governments when carrying out specific rules. Simply, local governments determine to shut down bitcoin exchanges or not. As major exchanges are all based in Beijing, it’s important to analyze Beijing’s policies first.

According to the regulatory document released by the Beijing leading group that is more specific and strict than that of the PBOC,

all platforms must stop services between CNY and tokens/virtual currencies.

platforms shall not provide pricing or serve as information intermediary for tokens or virtual currencies. If the terms are strictly implemented, all bitcoin exchanges should be shut down.

If the document only means to ban ICO tokens, then these platforms would simply transform to bitcoin exchanges. Even worse, if the big three are allowed to operate, then why other exchanges can’t considering no one in the industry has a license? Therefore, I assume the document is not only made to regulate ICOs, but to provide basis to supervise bitcoin exchanges.

As local governments, they will only be more tough when the responsibility fall on their shoulders.

What’s next?

As for major exchanges, they have done some job in account registration and anti-money laundering. Besides, they are relatively legitimate since they have been interacting with the PBOC. And daily transaction volumes of major exchanges surpass over 100 billion CNY. If they were banned altogether, it might bring about tremendous social insecurity. But regulatory authorities could start with limiting new registration and CNY deposit to reduce trade volumes and end up banning all exchanges. This would not be done overnight, probably will take two or three years.

Disclaimer: I personally don’t agree that bitcoin exchanges shall all be banned.

I have been living two lives. In one life, I am a news editor of 8btc. I translate news, interview bitcoiners and miners. In the other life, I am an AI bot programmed to .......Forget it! Who is gonna buy this BS! I'm just me, Cindy, nobody else.

COMMENTS(37)

1 year agoBitcoinAllBot

Here is the link to the original comment thread. Or you can comment here to start a discussion. Author: 8btccom

It looks like they want to remove the entire speculative side of blockchain technology from China, and for good. It’s very pragmatic. The question is whether they will actually implement the policy or not.

“SECONDLY, THE GROUP POINTS THAT SINCE ONE CAN BUY ANY PORTION OF A BITCOIN, WHICH IS SIMILAR TO DIVIDING SECURITY INTEREST. AS SUCH, BITCOIN TRANSACTIONS ARE BY THEIR VERY NATURE ILLEGAL SECURITIES ACTIVITIES.”

China Securities Journal and Caixin reported last weekend that regulatory agencies are likely to ban all digital currency exchanges, including leading bitcoin exchanges such as BTCChina, Huobi and OkCoin.

Both China Securities Journal and Caixin are credible news sources. China Securities Journal is a subsidiary of Xinhua News Agency, and one of its missions is to propagandize relevant policies and guidelines concerning economy, finance and securities.

The “mysterious” man mentioned in the news is probably a person who attended the panel discussion on how to impose regulation on the bitcoin economy held in Beijing last week. And the regulatory authority mentioned in the news is a special leading group set up ad hoc last year to manage and control Internet financial risks.

Attached to the State Council, the leading group implements the State Council’s policies to encourage valuable innovations in internet finance and establish long-term mechanism monitoring and crack down any illegal financial activities.

The Group believes that the hot bitcoin market is one of the root causes of the craze of cryptocurrencies and ICOs market. In other words, bitcoin market shall be regulated first before regulations be imposed on the ICOs market.
Secondly, the Group points that since one can buy any portion of a bitcoin, which is similar to dividing security interest. As such, bitcoin transactions are by their very nature illegal securities activities.
Thirdly, the Group clarifies that bitcoin is no blockchain, neither are bitcoin exchanges.
The three statements explain why the group think it is necessary to ban bitcoin exchanges. They want the market get a glimpse of upcoming regulations first and see how the market will react.

Furthermore, the Group notes that digital exchanges are not useful for technical development. Instead, they leave room for crimes to raise fund illegally. And bitcoin exchanges have done nothing to help grow real economy.

Some local governments are supportive of regulatory sandboxes that industrial players have been asking for. But the Group says that “there should be no green-lights”. As to the investment threshold, the Group believes that market risks would be decreased if threshold to be increased, but it will not avoid financial risks and social risks. In addition, if they recognize the legitimacy of digital currencies, they have to endorse them.

In a word, the Group denies all of the prerequisites for exchanges to operate.

Here I’m going to talk a little bit about how to carry out regulations.

The PBoC has the right to determine the nature of many currency and finance services; but it only notices risks and offers suggestions when many departments are involved. The announcement on Sept 4th is actually providing legal basis for the Group.

Though the Group is unanimous that bitcoin exchanges must be regulated, it depends on local governments when carrying out specific rules. Simply, local governments determine to shut down bitcoin exchanges or not. As major exchanges are all based in Beijing, it’s important to analyze Beijing’s policies first.

According to the regulatory document released by the Beijing leading group that is more specific and strict than that of the PBOC,

all platforms must stop services between CNY and tokens/virtual currencies.
platforms shall not provide pricing or serve as information intermediary for tokens or virtual currencies. If the terms are strictly implemented, all bitcoin exchanges should be shut down.
If the document only means to ban ICO tokens, then these platforms would simply transform to bitcoin exchanges. Even worse, if the big three are allowed to operate, then why other exchanges can’t considering no one in the industry has a license? Therefore, I assume the document is not only made to regulate ICOs, but to provide basis to supervise bitcoin exchanges.

As local governments, they will only be more tough when the responsibility fall on their shoulders.

What’s next?

As for major exchanges, they have done some job in account registration and anti-money laundering. Besides, they are relatively legitimate since they have been interacting with the PBOC. And daily transaction volumes of major exchanges surpass over 100 billion CNY. If they were banned altogether, it might bring about tremendous social insecurity. But regulatory authorities could start with limiting new registration and CNY deposit to reduce trade volumes and end up banning all exchanges. This would not be done overnight, probably will take two or three years.

Disclaimer: I personally don’t agree that bitcoin exchanges shall all be banned.

*The self declared Bitcoin expert said… *Mashomiito, expert in cryptocurrency, told us that…
*What happens to Bitcoin now? Experts say…
*The CEO, who has a degree in coins, said…
*We were told by the council of bitcoin-experts that…
*What the advisors forgot to mention was the announcement of the board of councelors of Bitcoin yesterday.
*This is Huge, said Romrom, expert in holding, trading and trolling.
*The president said that she is an expert in coins.

Developing and selling ASIC’s worldwide, consuming electricity, rent to house mining facilities, employing people to build and work on the maintenance and operation of the facilities, operating exchanges and employing programmers, accountants, etc; individual investors total net worth goes up against the fiat stimulating consumer spending…that all sounds like legit economic activity to me. Obviously crypto is a very small (tiny when you think about it) part of overall economic activity nationally and globally, but, it’s a real market. If China bans crypto, the market makers will just relocate. Vietnam. Hong Kong. Thailand. South Korea.

First, none of those activities is a consequence of day-trading. Nor is the general price rise.

Second, production of goods and services that only serve as inputs to an unproductive activity are themselves unproductive.

Even if you include the printing of tickets and the businesses that sell them, a lottery as a whole does not create any new real wealth and does not improve the general welfare of the people. It only moves wealth from some people to other people, with no good justification.

“…is a consequence of day-trading…” – huh? So what? They are all economic activities, and they are not just inputs to a closed system. Any individual who earns money spends money. In your lottery example, the companies who manufacture the paper, design and print the designs on the paper; the IT companies that maintain the lottery network; the shipping companies that distribute the tickets using gasoline and vehicles (I’m talking scratchers in this example); that’s all real economic activity and potential profit for private companies and individuals. If you’re arguing that someone who invests in BTC or lottery tickets and loses money while others profit makes it a closed system, that is utterly false; and if you’re arguing that it’s a zero-sum game you’re also wrong. There is no such thing in the real world. All the participants big or small in any market pick off their little piece, and that results in real spendable wealth for individuals.

That is the view of economics that day-traders and other financial game players adopt in order to justify their gambling.

Creating new wealth is different from just moving wealth around.

The latter does no net benefit to society, and often increases its losses (when concentrated wealth is spent in useless luxury stuff, for example).

When the movement of wealth in unproductive activities is determined by chance (as in lotteries and day-trading) or pure financial shrewdness (as in pyramid scams), it is actually bad for the economy, since it encourages people to devote their time to such unproductive activities, instead of productive ones.

It’s pointless to debate someone like you, but I’ll take one shot at it.

The movement of money between different participants in a market is never zero-sum because individuals in a market will always exit that market and enter another market (in fact all participants are in many markets simultaneously), and some of those individuals will generate economic growth.

There is no such thing as a closed system or zero-sum game, except on Earth as a whole. Actually there’s economic activity in space, so you probably have to back the view out to the solar system. Oh, I forgot…the old Voyager satellite left the solar system, so you’ll have to zoom out to nearby interstellar space.

I sell you 1 BTC for $4250. The next day the BTC price goes to $0. You are completely broke. I invest my $4250 in my new startup to cure cancer, which is ultimately successful. You get cancer. You use my technology to cure your illness (and since you were broke, perhaps you took out a loan to pay for it, generating more economic activity as you pay back the interest).

Result: immeasurably huge economic contribution to everyone, including even you, who intially suffered an economic loss at my behest in the “closed system” of the Bitcoin market.

<insert infinite other examples here/>

There is no such thing as a closed system. There is no such thing as a zero-sum game. The most accurate analysis of a market is quantum physics: you can know the probability of some outcomes with some degrees of uncertainty.

Anyone who thinks the way you do is a shill for /r/communism or a teenager writing his first term paper on economics.

The movement of money between different participants in a market is never zero-sum because individuals in a market will always exit that market and enter another market, … There is no such thing as a closed system or zero-sum game,

As in physics, a system does not have to be closed; you only need to account for things that enter and exit it. To analyze what investing in bitcoin does, it suffices to look at the money that goes into it and comes out of it (because the money that lies “in” it is always zero, since there is no entity that stores the investor’s money — unlike funds and stocks).

Then you realize that (1) only investors put money into that system, but (2) miners take out 8 million USD/day, besides what investors take out. Thus it is mathematically certain that the money that investors took out is several billion USD less than what they put in — and this deficit will only keep increasing, until the game ends.

But, like a lottery addict, you don’t care — because the prospect of winning dazzles you and makes you blind to the fact that most players will lose.

I sell you 1 BTC for $4250. The next day the price goes to $5000. I sell the bitcoin for $5000, and withdraw the cash at my bank. Hours later, the price of BTC goes to $0. You are completely broke.

Perhaps you like bitcoin because you cannot tell the difference between “buy” and “sell” 😉

Please try again, preferably after you sober up.

Meanwhile, consider this: the example you intended to give is “Alan2420 takes $5000 from jstolfi, then does something with the $5000 that is good for mankind”. Would’t it be simpler and safer to let jstolfi do the same with his $5000?

After all, jstolfi worked for his $5000, so he should be more careful with it than some dude who just won it by gambling.

Anyone who thinks the way you do is a shill for /r/communism

Again, sap-suckers and leeches insist that what they do is “capitalism”. It is not. Adam Smith’s book was called The Wealth of Nations, not The Profit of Gamblers.

China Securities Journal and Caixin reported last weekend that regulatory agencies are likely to ban all digital currency exchanges, including leading bitcoin exchanges such as BTCChina, Huobi and OkCoin.Both China Securities Journal and Caixin are credible news sources. China Securities Journal is a subsidiary of Xinhua News Agency, and one of its missions is to propagandize relevant policies and guidelines concerning economy, finance and securities.The mysterious man mentioned in the news is probably a person who attended the panel discussion on how to impose regulation on the bitcoin economy held in Beijing last week. And the regulatory authority mentioned in the news is a special leading group set up ad hoc last year to manage and control Internet financial risks.http://news.8btc.com/it-will-take-two-or-three-years-before-all-exchanges-are-shut-down-in-china

Forget the Chinese news journals, even mainstream world wide media reporting about a possible ban. When publications like Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg start talking about a ban, you have to take them seriously. I am not sure if the Chinese government will achieve its objectives, but it does seem to be trying to crush Bitcoin. The ICO ban was just the first step in a series of efforts.

Quote from: pitham1 on September 12, 2017, 12:12:45 PM
Forget the Chinese news journals, even mainstream world wide media reporting about a possible ban. When publications like Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg start talking about a ban, you have to take them seriously. I am not sure if the Chinese government will achieve its objectives, but it does seem to be trying to crush Bitcoin. The ICO ban was just the first step in a series of efforts.

But still the question is why now? But not when bitcoin has in still infancy? I think they are waging this war because they felt that the government are being threaten here. But if they really want to ban local exchanges then so be it. If I’m a Chinese trader I will be moving my funds by now. Maybe to Kraken or Polo as long as its not on the reach of the government. Just pretty sad to hear these news though as China has been the front of bitcoin mining, bitcoin trading in the last couple of years. But this is a perfect opportunity for other country to take the void that China would have left.

Quote from: pitham1 on September 12, 2017, 12:12:45 PM
Forget the Chinese news journals, even mainstream world wide media reporting about a possible ban. When publications like Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg start talking about a ban, you have to take them seriously. I am not sure if the Chinese government will achieve its objectives, but it does seem to be trying to crush Bitcoin. The ICO ban was just the first step in a series of efforts.
So banning of exchangers is just possible? I’m so confused about all this news, too many talks on the forum and natives are saying that they just don’t care and plan to hold their founds in any case.

Quote from: pitham1 on September 12, 2017, 12:12:45 PM
Forget the Chinese news journals, even mainstream world wide media reporting about a possible ban. When publications like Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg start talking about a ban, you have to take them seriously. I am not sure if the Chinese government will achieve its objectives, but it does seem to be trying to crush Bitcoin. The ICO ban was just the first step in a series of efforts.
So banning of exchangers is just possible? I’m so confused about all this news, too many talks on the forum and natives are saying that they just don’t care and plan to hold their founds in any case.

They do this because they know “nobody” can confiscate your bitcoins. If you have sole possession of your private keys, youcan do with those bitcoins what you want. If those bitcoins are on some Bitcoin exchange, you will have some problems getting it out, if a ban happens. The golden rule –> Do not store large amounts of bitcoins on third party services, where you do not have access to the private keys. *Bloomberg is a joke…. they are part of the problem.

I think the recent news are just plans to ban the bitcoin exchanges, there is nothing definitive yet. And we all know how long it takes before a law could be created and would take effect. But right now there is no bans yet so I think the fear happening right now is being taken advantage by the whales and they are buying cheap bitcoins right now.

Another article attempting to get the market to plummet (something that hasn’t been successful at their first attempt). Markets will move past this nonsense without much problems after a while, and that’s how it should be.If this news was taken seriously by the major players in this market, we would have seen a massive crash taking the price down significantly lower than what we have seen ~ currently Chinese exchange rates hover around $4000.If we look through all of this, then the correction and the China fud didn’t have that much of an effect on the market, especially when you consider that the overall buy support is extremely thin ~ that’s quite an achievement.

Quote from: Simple8.1 on September 12, 2017, 01:31:01 AM
China Securities Journal and Caixin reported last weekend that regulatory agencies are likely to ban all digital currency exchanges, including leading bitcoin exchanges such as BTCChina, Huobi and OkCoin.Both China Securities Journal and Caixin are credible news sources. China Securities Journal is a subsidiary of Xinhua News Agency, and one of its missions is to propagandize relevant policies and guidelines concerning economy, finance and securities.The mysterious man mentioned in the news is probably a person who attended the panel discussion on how to impose regulation on the bitcoin economy held in Beijing last week. And the regulatory authority mentioned in the news is a special leading group set up ad hoc last year to manage and control Internet financial risks.http://news.8btc.com/it-will-take-two-or-three-years-before-all-exchanges-are-shut-down-in-china

I have said several times and I will repeat it again, China is doing its job if there were not many scammers who create ICO and steal millions of dollars from investors and if many exchanges were not accused of money laundering and volume manipulation, there would be no convincing argument for Chinese authorities to engage in ICO and exchange” Looks like this time China finally banned Bitcoin exchanges. (Anonymous source I trust fully) There’s only one response: JUST HODŁ “https://twitter.com/SatoshiLite/status/907664619279343616/photo/1

Quote from: BitHodler on September 12, 2017, 05:44:59 PM
Another article attempting to get the market to plummet (something that hasn’t been successful at their first attempt). Markets will move past this nonsense without much problems after a while, and that’s how it should be.If this news was taken seriously by the major players in this market, we would have seen a massive crash taking the price down significantly lower than what we have seen ~ currently Chinese exchange rates hover around $4000.If we look through all of this, then the correction and the China fud didn’t have that much of an effect on the market, especially when you consider that the overall buy support is extremely thin ~ that’s quite an achievement.

I agree with you. Bitcoin price is still trading above $4000, although we have another drop today. But I guess we have weathered the storm, and we could just see occasionally dump moving forward. Although I believe that there will negative news coming our way, I still believed that we withstand it and the more we move forward, the more the news will be irrelevant and totally forgotten. We already seen that we can go on without the Chinese, and if they voided something whether in mining capacity or investors, more are willing to replace them.

Inflated Bitcoin value is a wealth transfer from investors and speculators to miners.

Good that you admit it. Will someone tell that to all investors and speculators? They are giving about 8 million USd/day to the miners, and that money will never come back.

As a result of runaway price appreciation from “gamblers” … Mining is now very competitive making the blockchain more secure than ever.

The first consequence of the absurd overpricing of bitcoin was the centralization of mining in two dozen “industrial” pools; so that 4 pools (all Chinese) have 51% of the hashrate, and 10 pools have ~80% .

This situation means that bitcoin has already failed: it is no longer decentralized. That was the only feature that justified all its other shortcomings.

Decentralization, more than sheer hashpower, was supposed to make bitcoin secure. With the current situation, bitcoin is no longer secure. If 5-8 of the largest pools agree, they can rewind the blockchain and replace already confirmed transactions by double-spends, for example. Or they can freeze certain coins indefinitely, even if the other miners try to confirm them.